There are various sports which require a shooter to hit a moving target with a shotgun including skeet, trap, sporting clays, and hunting. Since their inception, these sports have become increasingly popular throughout the United States. Skeet was developed between 1910 and 1915. Today, there are 17,000 members in the National Skeet Shooting Association, the governing body of all skeet shooting in the United States. Trap shooting originated in the 1700's, currently the Amateur Trap Shooting Association, which serves as governing body for all registered trap shoots, has 100,000 members. Sporting clays developed in England in 1925. After a slow start, the sport has made its greatest gains in popularity in England in the last 20 years and in the U.S. in the last 5-8 years. Finally, hunting has always been a very popular sport. In 1989, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated there were 15,858,063 licensed hunters, it is safe to say that hunting is one of the most popular sports in the United States today.
Beginners participating in these shotgun shooting sports quickly discover that hitting a moving target is extremely difficult. Generally, a shotgun has a smoothly bored barrel with a relatively large inner diameter as compared to a rifle. A shotgun shell houses a group of small, metal pellets called shot. Once fired, as the shot leave the barrel they spread somewhat and travel in a stream-like fashion, much like a stream of water from a garden hose. This stream-like pattern, called a shotstring, makes it easier to hit a moving target, the shooter need only catch the target in the spread out stream of shot as opposed to hitting the target with a single projectile. Generally, a shotgun is pointed, by experienced shooters at a target using a smooth, practical rhythm of motion. A small, steel or plastic bead sight attached to the muzzle of the gun typically is provided as a reference device in pointing the shotgun at the target.
To shoot a shotgun one must mount the shotgun correctly. When mounting a shotgun, the shooter brings the butt-end of the stock to the shoulder and the side to the face so the eye which is closest to the stock looks directly over the top of and down the barrel of the shotgun along what may be deemed a "sight axis" across the small bead sight mounted, on the muzzle of the gun. Once the shotgun is properly mounted, preferably, the head does not move with respect to the gun. This keeps the shotgun in the same position in relation to the shooter's eye and enables the use of a consistent body position as a reference as to where the gun is pointed while visually focusing and concentrating on the moving target.
The shooter should always keep both eyes open and focused at the far, target field to obtain a wider range of vision while he is in the process of pointing the gun and shooting. This enables the shooter to see the target for a longer period of time and thus devote more concentration on the target. A shooter attempting to hit a moving target while using only one eye greatly restricts his vision and ability to hit moving targets. The most difficult problem encountered by clay target shooters, hunters, and other sportsmen engaged in shooting sports involving a moving target is that of opposite eye dominance. An opposite eye dominant shooter who attempts to shoot with both eyes open will experience a totally inappropriate gun-target picture. Thus, a right-hand shooter who is left eye dominant cannot shoot with both eyes open, putting him at a definite disadvantage. A variety of products that block part of the shooter's opposite dominant vision are currently on the market, these involve placing optical discs or other objects on the shooter's glasses. While this technique is helpful, it is only a partial solution. The shooter still suffers from partially blocked vision and is now subject to an additional distraction from necessary attention to the target.
In skeet, targets called "birds" are thrown or propelled from mechanical or electrical "traps" at about 75 miles per hour from a pair of houses spaced approximately thirty-seven yards apart, the low house and the high house. The low house ejects targets from a lower position than the high house and the targets intersect near the same point in the middle of the field. Thus, targets thrown from the low house travel in a steeper trajectory than targets thrown from the high house, which travel in a relatively flat trajectory. The shooter shoots at a target thrown from the low house and the high house from each of a group of eight stations positioned in a semi-circle. At stations one, two, six and seven, the shooter also shoots at a double, which consists of a pair of targets released simultaneously, one from the high house and one from the low house. In order to hit a target, the shooter must lead the target to compensate for speed, angle and distance. To obtain a proper lead, the shooter must concentrate intensely on the target, yet know where the bead on the end of his shotgun is as a reference as to where the gun is pointed. There are three methods of obtaining the proper lead to successfully hit a skeet target: the pass through, the acceleration and the sustained lead method. In using the pass through method, the shooter starts the gun behind the target, swings the gun and overtakes or passes through the target and fires. To successfully break a target using the pass through method the shooter must concentrate on the target and pass the small bead sight on the muzzle of the shotgun through the target. The second method of shooting a skeet target is the acceleration method. In this method, the shooter points the gun directly at the target and follows it through the air. When he is ready to shoot he accelerates the gun in front of the target and fires. To successfully break a target using the acceleration method the shooter must place the bead at the muzzle of the shotgun on the target and track the target with the sight before accelerating the gun to shoot the target. Finally, the third and currently considered most accurate method of shooting a skeet target is the sustained lead method. Using this method, the movement of the gun is started simultaneously at target release and the shooter maintains a constant lead in front of the target, firing at the target at anytime during its flight. At each station of a skeet field, there is a unique, predetermined amount of lead that must be taken to break the target. To successfully break a target using the sustained lead method the shooter must concentrate on the target yet remain aware of the orientation of the barrel of the shotgun as a reference point to verify that the correct lead has been taken to break the target. In effect, to utilize any of the above sighting methods, the shooter must concentrate on the target while somehow remaining aware of the location of the tip of the barrel of his shotgun.
Trap, like skeet, is a shooting sport in which a shooter tries to hit targets propelled into the air at about 75 miles per hour. However, in trap, the targets are thrown away from the shooter at five different angles from a pit located below grounded level in the middle of the field. Shooting from five successive stations positioned in an arcuate row behind the pit, the shooter must lead each target to compensate for speed, angle, and distance. Essentially, the same three methods for obtaining the proper lead to successfully hit a skeet target as described above; the pass through, acceleration and sustained lead method, are used in trap. The most popular being thes pass through method. Thus, as in skeet, to properly sight a trap target the shooter must concentrate intensely on the target yet constantly know where the bead sight is as a reference as to where the gun is pointed.
In sporting clays, which is designed to simulate actual hunting conditions, targets are usually thrown in a wooded setting at a higher rate of speed than trap or skeet targets, come in five different sizes and are painted either orange, white, yellow, or black. The shooter must shoot at the targets, which are released as either singles, following pairs, report doubles or true doubles from various stations, however the gun cannot be mounted until the target is thrown and becomes completely visible. If the shooter mounts the gun too quickly, a referee calls "no target" and the target is thrown again. Should the shooter persist in mounting the gun too quickly, the referee calls the target "lost' and the target is not thrown again. Because of the varied background created by the woods and other natural settings, the speed, size and various colors of the targets, complete concentration on the target in sporting clays is of the utmost importance. As in trap or skeet, in sporting clays a shooter must lead the target to compensate for speed, angle, and distance. Generally, the same methods of obtaining the proper lead to successfully hit a skeet target are used in sporting clays. The pass through and acceleration methods can be used in sporting clays and are carried out in much the same manner as described in conjunction with skeet. Similar to the sustained lead method used in skeet, the "move, mount and shoot" method can be utilized in sporting clays. When the shotgun is unmounted the muzzle of the gun is maintained ahead of the target as the target is thrown. The gun is mounted and a proper lead unique to the shooting station and the type of target being thrown is determined and the target is fired upon. For success in sporting clays, the move, mount and shoot method, which mandates that the target be tracked with the muzzle of the gun before the shotgun is mounted, is a must. The woods, background color, the speed, and various colors and sizes of the clay targets are all factors that make it very difficult to track a sporting clays target. Thus, a great deal of concentration or cognition must be devoted to the target, which makes it more difficult to keep track of the orientation of the barrel as a reference of where the gun is pointed.
Hunting can be a most frustrating and difficult shooting sport. Many factors hamper a hunter's ability to shoot game. The target, an animal, is usually naturally camouflaged, thus difficult to see, and almost always moves in an unpredictable path at unpredictable speeds. Wooded areas which provide a dark, cluttered background and open fields which may provide a bright, cloudy, or dark background may also hamper a shooter's ability to track game. Thus, it is important that the hunter devote full concentration on the target while knowing where the end of his shotgun is as a reference of where the gun is pointed. Unfortunately, in a hunting environment, the small bead sight on the end of a shotgun generally will be defocused and further difficult to locate as a reference point because of background conditions and a great variety of other factors.
Other lesser known shotgun sports such as tower shoots, flushes, crazy quail and quail walks, or the more internationally known sports of Olympic Trap and Skeet, pigeon shooting and driven pheasants import all the principals of obtaining a proper lead and concentrating on a moving target while remaining aware of gun orientation as described in conjunction with skeet, trap, sporting clays and hunting.